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Chapters (62)
  1. Title
  2. Copyright
  3. Contents
  4. About the Author
  5. About the Book
  6. Dedication
  7. Your Worst Nightmare
  8. ONE
  9. TWO
  10. THREE
  11. FOUR
  12. FIVE
  13. SIX
  14. SEVEN
  15. EIGHT
  16. NINE
  17. The Answer to All Your Prayers
  18. TEN
  19. ELEVEN
  20. TWELVE
  21. THIRTEEN
  22. FOURTEEN
  23. FIFTEEN
  24. SIXTEEN
  25. SEVENTEEN
  26. EIGHTEEN
  27. NINETEEN
  28. TWENTY
  29. TWENTY-ONE
  30. TWENTY-TWO
  31. TWENTY-THREE
  32. TWENTY-FOUR
  33. TWENTY-FIVE
  34. TWENTY-SIX
  35. TWENTY-SEVEN
  36. TWENTY-EIGHT
  37. TWENTY-NINE
  38. THIRTY
  39. THIRTY-ONE
  40. Somebody Else’s Child
  41. THIRTY-TWO
  42. THIRTY-THREE
  43. THIRTY-FOUR
  44. THIRTY-FIVE
  45. THIRTY-SIX
  46. THIRTY-SEVEN
  47. THIRTY-EIGHT
  48. THIRTY-NINE
  49. FORTY
  50. FORTY-ONE
  51. FORTY-TWO
  52. FORTY-THREE
  53. FORTY-FOUR
  54. FORTY-FIVE
  55. FORTY-SIX
  56. FORTY-SEVEN
  57. FORTY-EIGHT
  58. FORTY-NINE
  59. Sunlight on Water
  60. July
  61. September
  62. Acknowledgements

Stiffly, the boy swings his legs over the boot-sill, and rests his dirty feet on the rear bumper. The policewoman pulls on his arms and raises him up, and he jumps clumsily down from the boot on to the concrete standing, staggering as he lands.

‘You don’t look very well, sweetheart,’ says the policewoman. ‘Just sit yourself down there a minute, and put your head between your legs.’

The boy sits cross-legged on the concrete, hiding his face on his knees, and the policewoman crouches at his side. She puts a caring arm around his skinny shoulders. Through his shirt, she can see the nodules of his spine.

‘Can you tell me your name, my love?’ she asks.

‘Evan,’ he says. ‘I’m Evan Ferrers.’ He looks up at her, and the scourge of torment is in his face. ‘Do you think you could ring my mum, and ask her to come and take me home?’

ELEVEN

ELEVEN

It’s something Claire feels inclined never to forgive herself, one of her life’s most perfect ironies, that despite her being almost housebound and a near-recluse all this time – eight months and five days – when they come to bring her the news, she isn’t home. Instead, she’s meandering aimlessly around Sainsbury’s, looking over the English strawberries. She picks up a punnet, and sniffs the red scent through the pierced cellophane, longing for better things, a better place, to go back in time, or forwards, anywhere but here. There’s such nostalgia in the scent of strawberries – expeditions to summer fields, Evan running up and down the rows of the pick-your-own, berry stains covering his shorts. And her mother with them: her mother used to love picking strawberries. Claire feels a pang, a pain in her chest she knows is heartbreak, but for whom she isn’t sure. Her mother was gone before Evan disappeared, and it’s a blessing she was spared.

On the Maidenhead road the traffic’s bad, and that adds twenty minutes to her journey, so she’s fretting about the chilled stuff in the heat, marvelling at the same time that she can still be bothered by such trivialities as melting butter. When she turns into the cul-de-sac and sees the car, the last green shoot of hope – the one protected with such fierce care against the landslip of probability – dies.